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His arms moved, but not in the way he wanted. Maximos had taken another grip on him, the inky black blood causing a strange sensation on the skin it touched, but he focused on nothing but his opponent and situation. As Max grabbed Ruu's right and tugged him in closer, the elf went with it. There was no real distance to speak of, but even the smallest gave momentum the elf would use. As the two bodies came closer, Ruu tugged at his arms to bring them together faster, maybe too fast, and lowered his shoulder as much as he could given the grip Max had. It was a simple shoulder-barge to Max's chest area, something to loosen the bonds, catch him off guard, knock the wind out of him... whatever one does to shadows. It was quick and done with them close together, not leaving a lot of time for recovery.

Hopefully with the grip slightly weakened, Ruuvan pulled as free as he could only to feel a sharp slash across his stomach. Cloth fell apart and revealed something metallic and shiny; elven armour. Adorned on his chest, underneath a single layer of forest green coloured clothes, was some of the sturdiest armour given to warriors on Aria. A kingly gift some might say, others would call it a means of protection. Again and again that tail cracked out. Twice, three times, four... six was the final number, leaving him standing locked with Maximos. Then a blast.

Backwards he went again, more blood streaming from his nose, and starbursts filled his vision. Pain rang through his arm and head, like he had just gone five rounds bare-knuckled, but he pushed it aside. No pain showed on his face, that was all part of the mindgame whilst fighting, and he held himself as normally as if nothing had happened. Two collisions, both ending with Ruuvan flat on his a**. He was on his feet again now though, staring down Maximos with slight red marks where the black blood had exploded.

Preliminaries over, Ruuvan quickly reached to his sides and drew the two Elven blades. 2-0 to Maximos, now the rules went up a notch. His turn to be on the defensive, Ruu held his left blade slightly higher than the right and watched the shadow. Drawing swords was a signal it had taken off, now was time for the sparks.

Stephen watched as his opponent dropped to the ground, bleeding from a rather nasty cut which the lad was almost appalled to think that he had made. But this was battle, and sometimes the safeties of others came secondary to the safeties of one's self. Besides, this was the Void, nothing that happened here ever seemed to have any serious permanent effect in the grand scheme of things... usually.

The lad had bigger problems on his hands, however - and ironically, it came in the form of a hand. A really BIG hand. Clenched tight in a fist and protruding spikes heading straight at him.

Sutii pushed himself backwards as the fist came in falling back into a roll as the attack came at him. When he had began to return to his feet, he quickly sheathed his blades and quickly ran towards the nearest outcropping that the cliff had to offer - it was time to go on the defensive until he could get a decent shot or an opening on his opponent. Wounded though he may be, he was obviously ever more adept in battle than he let on at the start. On a similar matter, the lad noted that he himself was bleeding a bit - one of the spikes had more than grazed his shoulder as he attempted to escape them. Fighting back the pain, he continued on with his rush to the outcropping.

One in range of the outcropping, he broke out his parkour techniques with great haste, skillfully scaling the outcropping and traversing his way across so he could jump to the next one. If Joe wanted him now, he was gonna have to catch him until Sutii decided to go back into the fray.

And if he kept being bombarded with massive fists of stone, that might take a bit of doing.

Sutiiven was shocked that the man didn't keep coming after his relatively open target - a well timed attack mid jump would have floored him but good. He then noted the reason - he was using the fire from his lighter to cauterize his wound. This action brought three words into the man's mind as he paused his advance across the canyon outcroppings.

What.

The.

F*ck?

In all of his combat experience he had NEVER seen someone use an item such as a lighter and manipulate it such as to perform a technique such as cauterization of a wound. Such an art was seriously an advanced technique of some kind. While this would normally have been an excellent time to strike, he decided to watch his opponents actions as the cauterization ended.

From this choice he was able to clearly witness the man casually take out what appeared to be a cigarette case. Stephens suspicions were confirmed as the man took one out of the contianer and lit up in a manner that was way too calm for the heat of battle.

Cue another WTF moment.

Stephen thought about it for a moment, and from his knowledge of the man's abilities so far, presumed it to be a very nasty trap - if he could manipulate fire, what was to stop him from manipulating the lit cigarette? It was, after all, nothing more than tobacco wrapped in a filter that was on fire. And the stone fist attack? Earth manipulation, something that the man could quite readily handle what with all of said earth around in this canyon. The lad wouldn't have been shocked in the slightest if the broken sword was nothing more than some metal manipulation in order to lure him into a false sense of security, or baring that, the weapon could presumably be repaired.

Sutii pondered on what to do, and glanced at a rock about the size of a softball. He glanced back at his opponent, then back at the rock. With quick reflexes, he grabbed the rock in one hand, and began to wind up in a sort of pitchers stance. As he did so, he charged some energy up in his hand - nothing more than what would be used in his Flash Bomb technique, it was more there for the extra force than to add anything fancy to the rock. As the rock left his hand from the pitch, he released the energy, causing a small blast that sped up the rock to a speed much greater than if it had been pitched alone, sending it flying straight at Joe with Sir Issac Newton in the drivers seat.

It was time to experiment.

Stephen watched as his rock was annihilated by flame. Obviously this man was well prepared for any kind of combat with his manipulation abilities. The fire plus the new metallic spike looking thingies floating about his hand gave off a real feeling of power, and Stephen was indeed impressed.

Except...

This kind of power most likely required a lot of energy, and if Joe kept it going at this rate for too much longer, he would be only draining himself. Stephen had drained himself from too much constant energy use in battles before - if given the time to rest, the energy recovers, but if drained completely, one's recovery rate slows to a grinding halt, requiring a lot more time than usual - Stephen himself generally required a day or more to recover from such a drain. What this man could do was beyond his knowledge, but Stephen knew that he would eventually have to rest.

Diving headlong into a fully stacked opponent was suicide, even with his skills in avoiding taking hits (albeit they weren't perfect, as his bleeding shoulder was a prominent reminder of that fact.) His mind raced, trying to figure out what to do and how to keep this man from utterly coming in and dominating him with his twin threat of flame and needles. What he DID know was that remaining completely unarmed was a danger in the case he needed to protect himself from incoming "shrapnel." But he couldn't keep both hands full with his swords - he needed at least one free hand to help him climb around the outcroppings if needed.

Time to try out another new ability.



Stephen drew his weapons, and quickly twirled them down so that they were facing the ground in a position that looked a bit like a praying mantis - indeed a good pose, but now was not the time to use it for combat. Instead he took the said weapons and clashed their pommels together, and at the same time pulsed a bit of energy in a very specific way through them. With a faint light, the weapons hilts ceased to be two and became one.

Twirling the weapon around him a bit, he shifted his weight so that his left foot was forward and his right was back, his left hand forward towards Joe with his right holding Aria in the middle of its hilt. With a very subtle shift of his left hand, he did performed a "bring it" motion - a taunt perhaps?

However, instead of waiting for him to attack or "bring it", he shifted his weight and began running towards another outcropping, moving Aria over to his left hand and held it behind him so that the blades weren't in the way. Once at the edge of the outcropping, he jumped over to the next one. This one was a little closer to to Joe's position, clearly denoting that he was coming in to possibly get the battle started up again. Joe had some room to attack before Sutii got within close range - the long haired lad wasn't taking his time, but he wasn't charging in like he had before either.

Would Joe react, or would he wait for Sutiiven to get closer before coming in even closer before attacking the man? Only time would tell.

Stephen had seen something along that line coming from a mile away. The knife was a surprise, but this was not the time to worry about that, he had needles to deal with. Continuing his forward motion, he brought Aria in front of him, and grabbed it with both hands and began twirling the weapon in front of him in order to create a kid of shield. It worked rather well, as it deflected a majority of the needles (a couple managed to sneak by and graze him, causing more blood to seep from his body, but it was nothing he couldn't shrug off.) The important part was that he didn't take any critical damage from the attack, and as such, was able to keep going towards his opponent.

With the needles dealt with and Joe approaching, he brought Aria back into his right hand, preparing it for an attack. Once he was close enough (still out of range, but not by much,) he brought the weapon up above his head, spun it in his hands once, then came down to strike Joe across the chest again. Unlike with Requiem and Nocturne, he couldn't keep a weapon open for defense, but instead the opposite side of Aria remained ready to snap into action and protect the man from his opponents knife.

The fight was back on.

Stephen's weapon was parried, and in reaction he was about to swing in to the side with the other half of the dual ended weapon when a puff of flame came right at him. In a near panic, he stepped back a couple paces crossing his arms in front of his face to prevent from it getting burned. The rest of him would get singed rather easily, though it were not quite as nasty as if it were at the first range.

Jacket now slightly singed, he lowered his arms down to steel himself for the inevitable strike coming in as a follow up and -

Wait - what th - is he... VOMITING?

Sure enough, Stephen's arms and mouth dropped slightly as he saw his opponent spewing his lunch out onto the hard ground. Very rarely had he seen someone chuck their cookies on the battlefield, and it was usually due to the fact that it was their first time in battle and the sight of blood or other wounds just got to them.

Stephen wasn't much for the sight of vomiting himself, but he forced himself to keep his stomach in line and moved towards Joe in a non threatening way (to the side of him, of course, to avoid being spewed on... directly, as he was already wearing a little bit of it on his shoes.)

Holding Aria in his left hand, he placed his right on the hunched man's back and said "Uh... you okay, buddy?"

HOLY SH-

Stephen quickly regretted that bout of niceties towards his opponent as he was swept off his feet. If it were to the back or to the front, Sutii would have been okay, but seeing as this was a side sweep, his ability to recover or counter was rather screwed. He slammed into the ground, trying his best to rapidly roll onto his back and bring his weapon in front of him for defense.



The man was resisting the urge to mentally slip into his some what slurred accent like he occasionally did in stressful situations. He wasn't TOTALLY screwed just yet, but he still had to hold back the urge to groan "I dun get paid enuff fa dis s**t..."

Stephen began to roll away from the incoming knife, assuming that it was intended for him. Unsure if the man were to attack again with something he rolled back on his back, weapon still ready and legs up to kick if necessary. If He Joe gave Sutii enough of an opening, he would be able to return to his feet.



*insert massive string of expletives here*

Yes, Stephen would be getting up, but not without the discovery of the man's ability to manipulate shadows as well. His posterior was not bleeding nor was there any physical wound to speak of, but long story short, one side of his a** hurt like a b***h now. In fact, it was all the man needed to jump to his feet, and he pretty much had to willfully restrain himself from grabbing his backside and dancing about like a 5 year old that had just been punished for disobeying his mother and stealing cookies.

Wincing and grimacing rather unhappily, the man grabbed his weapon and came at Joe, feinting a strike to the ribs on the man's left side and following up with an actual strike with the flat of the opposite blade upside Joe's head.

He was NOT in a good mood now, and was hoping to end this fight soon so that he didn't give into the urge to do some serious damage to his opponent.

He was, however, enjoying the prospect of beating the crap out of his opponent in order to accomplish such a thing.